Art Out-of-Doors 
To-day the most general custom is to set the 
house well back from the street, leaving room 
in front for a lawn with trees and shrubs, and 
in the rear for a fruit or vegetable garden, 
and often a stable. 
This arrangement, consistently followed, 
is certainly the best as regards the aspect of 
the street itself, giving it breadth and dig- 
nity and a pleasing combination of natural 
and architectural features. And it is proba- 
bly the best, too, as regards the comfort and 
pleasure of the average modern owner, for, 
while it removes his windows from immedi- 
ate contact with the street, it permits him 
still to take a contemplative part in the life 
of the town, over a foreground green and 
pleasant to the eye ; and this privilege is 
more valued by the average American than 
by the average Englishman, while he has 
not the Englishman’s feeling that, to enjoy 
his own private share of Nature’s beauty, 
he must carefully seclude it from the eyes of 
others. Colonial builders were English by 
near descent if not by birth, and their archi- 
tectural arrangements express the fact, being 
fitted to English modes of feeling and of liv- 
